Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 17.djvu/159

 in the course of the lecture, "as the science of the general relations of time and space, the conditions under which existence in nature is possible, has the same relation to the insight of man into the physical world that classic study has to his insight into the world of institutions." These extracts, if I mistake not, fairly represent Mr. Harris's argument. Seeing that he is a very able and accomplished man, I take it for granted that his argument, as it is the last that has been delivered, is the best that can be made.

What Mr. Harris says of mathematics appears to me in itself to reduce his conclusion to something inconsistent with reason; not that he claims too much for mathematics in the sphere of physics, but that, in claiming as much for Latin and Greek outside of that sphere, he puts a contingent manifestation of mind on a level with the laws of mental processes, coördinating an artificial product with a formal science, two things of wholly different orders, and making the former a key to life as the latter is a key to nature. This at least betrays confusion of thought. If what Mr. Harris wants is a study that has the same relation to "the world of institutions" that mathematics has to "the physical world," he should take not Latin and Greek but logic, a science of the same order as mathematics, and dealing with thought precisely as mathematics deals with quantity. If he does not want a study of this kind, he should not represent what he does want as being such a study, and commend it on the strength of this fallacious representation. Latin and Greek certainly do not form such a study.

But "self-alienation is necessary to self-knowledge," says Mr. Harris; and the study of Latin and Greek, he maintains, is the surest way to bring about "self-alienation," which we may presume to have been the notion passing in the mind of Festus when he made that famous exclamation in the hall of audience at Cæsarea: "Paul thou art beside thyself; much learning doth make thee mad." And, truly, if a man has made up his mind to inflict "self-alienation" on himself, Latin and Greek will answer the purpose; but, before he drains the fatal cup, he should find out, if possible, exactly what he will make by it. A wise man considers the article before he decides to pay the price. Mr. Harris concedes that the "higher abstract elements" of the ancient civilizations can be reached through translation, but not, or at any rate not adequately, he says, the "earlier stages of growth—those of feeling and phantasy." These, as he contends, translation loses "in a large measure"; so that how the Greeks and Latins felt, and what they fancied, can be adequately seized only by "learning to think in their idioms, and to give our thoughts their forms and words." Here we have the article, with the price marked on it: a "large measure" of the "feelings and phantasies" of the Greeks and Latins, in return for learning to think in their idioms. Is not the price a little steep, considering the flatness of the article? Admitting that a full knowledge of the "feelings and phantasies" in question can not be got by translation,